After guarding Adolf Eichmannís diaries for almost 40 years,
yesterday the Israeli government made them public. Eichmann, a Nazi SS
lieutenant colonel, was executed in 1962 in Israel for "crimes
against the Jewish people and against humanity."

Eichmann wrote these diaries during the months following his death
sentence. They are especially chilling in their description of the way
the Nazi regime came to the "Final Solution" against the Jews,
and the way the extermination was implemented.

The pages are also very interesting in studying the Vaticanís
position on the persecution of Jews. Some people accuse the Church of
having done nothing in October, 1943, when the Nazis began to deport
Jews from their "ghetto" in Rome. However, Eichmann wrote that
the Vatican "vigorously protested the arrest of Jews, requesting
the interruption of such action; to the contrary, the Pope would
denounce it publicly."

This is a confirmation of the thesis of those historians who have
collected documents on the action undertaking by the Vatican to defend
Jews during those dark years. It must be kept in mind that Rome was
occupied, and that the Church was the only institution that had the
courage to denounce the Nazi action.

In a chapter dedicated to Italy, Eichmann explains that "on
October 6, 1943, ambassador Moelhausen sent a telegraphic message to
Foreign Minister Ribbentrop in which he said that general Keppler, SS
commander in Rome, had received a special order from Berlin: he had to
arrest 8,000 Jews who were living in Rome to deport them to northern
Italy, where they would be exterminated. General Stahel, commander of
the German forces in Rome, explained to ambassador Moelhausen that, from
his point of view, it would be better to use the Jews for fortification
works. On October 9, however, Ribbentrop answered that the 8,000 Jews of
Rome had to be deported to the Mathausen concentration camp. He
emphasized that, in giving evidence under oath in the military prison of
Gaeta on June 27, 1961, Kappler said that it was with that order that
for the first time he heard the term ĎFinal Solution.í "

"At that time, my office received the copy of a letter, that I
immediately gave to my direct superiors, sent by the Catholic Church in
Rome, in the person of Bishop Hudal, to the commander of the German
forces in Rome, general Stahel. The Church was vigorously protesting the
arrest of Jews of Italian citizenship, requesting that such actions be
interrupted immediately throughout Rome and its surroundings. To the
contrary, the Pope would denounce it publicly. The Curia was especially
angry because these incidents were taking place practically under
Vatican windows. But, precisely at that time, without paying any
attention to the Churchís position, the Italian fascist government
passed a law ordering the deportation of all Italian Jews to
concentration camps," Eichmann wrote in his diary.

"The objections given and the excessive delay in the steps
necessary to complete the implementation of the operation, resulted in a
great part of Italian Jews being able to hide and escape capture,"
Eichmann wrote. A good number of them hid in convents or were helped by
men and women of the Church. ZE00030107Back to Pius XII index